Jellyfish

Saturday at the aquarium...

A first...

Yesterday afternoon, my 3 year old and I were in the checkout line at Trader Joe's. Next to us, there were two little girls who were maybe 4 or 5. My daughter thinks that any child her age is a friend, and fortunately these little girls did too. My daughter was wearing her tutu because she'd just gotten done with dance class, and the girls had balloons because they'd gotten them at Spanish class. So there they were chatting away and then I heard this come out of my daughter's mouth, "Oh, I'm homeschooled. And I go to dance class, and Church Mice, and Little Explorers." I was so surprised because she's never explained this to anyone before. It's always me explaining to adults. I used to wonder what she was going to feel about other children going to school, and about her schooling happening at home. She was so matter-of-fact and happy. They all kept chatting and sucking on the lollipops they'd gotten for finding the store's hidden mascot. It was lovely.

Milly Molly Mandy

This morning, we read our first Milly Molly Mandy story, in which MMM runs errands for her family. MMM lives with her mother, father, grandmother, grandfather, uncle, and aunty, and each of them, unbeknownst to the others, asks MMM to run an errand. On top of that, MMM's dog wants a walk. MMM tells him he'll have to wait, because she has six errands to remember. Well, she remembers five of them, but she can't remember the last, and she has a penny with which she's supposed to buy something for someone. The shopkeeper asks if the penny is for candy (sweeties), but MMM says no, and tries to remember who have her the penny and what she was supposed to buy. Finally, she remembers, buys the item, goes home to walk the dog, and is rewarded with money to buy sweeties when the adults find out what a good errand girl MMM really is.

In a book written today, the main character would roll her eyes and protest when asked to help, then forget what she was supposed to buy. Then when the shopkeeper asked her if she wanted candy, the child would go ahead and buy candy. And then the child would forget to walk the dog.

This first story has so many character lessons. MMM is happy to be helpful, and has a cheerful attitude. She responds "Yes, Mother" and "Yes, Father" when her parents tell her to do something. She's respectful, responsible, and honest. Finally, she's generous, sharing the reward she receives with a friend.

Have you read MMM? What was your take?

Our Next Read Aloud...

Friday, we finished two books. Our morning read aloud - Charlie and the Chocolate Factory by Roald Dahl - and a book we'd been reading in the evenings (because my daughter "loves" George Washington) - George Washington by the D'Aulaires.

So far, our morning read alouds have been A Bear Called Paddington and Charlie and the Chocolate Factory. Chapter books. Fiction. This reading takes place in the car, and my husband instituted a Three Interruption Rule, which means that if she interrupts three times, I close the book. This does not mean that I don't stop to explain what certain words or expressions mean, just that Daughter can't do something like stop the story to say she doesn't want to wear her shoes. The Three Interruption Rule works great! There have been mornings where she hasn't interrupted at all.

She loved Charlie. She was very interested in comparing the book to the movie. There are quite a few differences, a huge one being that Charlie never does anything wrong in the book. However, in the movie, he and Grandpa Joe break the rules and drink Fizzy Lifting Drink. It's a great scene in the movie, but Dahl's Charlie is the good guy, the child to emulate. He wouldn't disrespect Willy Wonka by not listening, and he would never even consider stealing. But movies have to have conflict, and children being taught lessons by turning into blueberries, being sucked up tubes, being made tiny, and falling down garbage chutes, while the main character stands back and watches - this does not make a movie.

I did do some censoring while reading the book. Mainly, I lessened how rude the children were to their parents. In one instance, I said "Be quiet" instead of "Shut up."

...Which brings me to my choice for our next read aloud.

I wanted something where the child main character speaks nicely to her parents. We don't allow our daughter to put her hand on her hip when she's talking, or to tell us "But-", and we have her say "Yes Mommy" or "Yes Daddy" when we tell her to do something. These are habits we are training. Training. As a public school teacher, it frustrates me when elementary school children do things like suck their teeth or roll their eyes, etc. These are just a handful of the behaviors I refuse to allow my child to think are okay. This is why I liked Veruca Salt so much - because she gave us the opportunity to discuss "good egg"/"good nut" behavior vs. "bad egg"/"bad nut" behavior.

I considered James and the Giant Peach; Pippi Longstocking; The Wonderful Wizard of Oz; Charlotte's Web; Mr. Popper's Penguins; Homer Price; The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe; and Little House in the Big Woods. But I thought about what we needed right now, and right now we don't need parents getting killed by rhinoceroses, or little girls with dead mothers and the mention of cannibals, or Mommy tearing up when Charlotte dies (because Mommy will tear up). We can hold off on Oz and Narnia and the American frontier. We can hold off on donut machines and penguins. What we need right now is little girl with a sweet attitude and a loving two-parent household.

So our next read aloud is The Milly Molly Mandy Storybook.

When I first saw this book on a list, and read the first few pages, I was turned off by its simplicity. Where's the conflict? But then - confession time - I let my daughter watch Big Hero 6. Mistake. She didn't have nightmares, thankfully, but there was so much that was just unnecessary for a 4 year old. Yes, the death scene bothered me, but not as much as having a main character who is disrespectful and lazy and arrogant. He's not a kid you want your child to emulate. The biggest thing that's wrong with this movie is that the character that we want our children to be like is not the one that is most relatable, the human kid. No, the character with the clear understanding of right and wrong is the one that is least relatable - the robot.

I'm looking forward to simplicity.

What's your next read aloud?

Classical Conversations and Charlotte Mason

Tonight I met with the director of the local Classical Conversations group for the required "Informational Meeting." She was very sweet and I liked her immediately.

My 12 year old cousin is homeschooled, and my aunt and uncle have been part of a CC community for the past 7 years. I've always been impressed by what my cousin has gotten out of CC, and the way my aunt and uncle have talked about CC. The idea of CC for my own child (even before I had a child) has always been at the back of my mind.

But then I found Charlotte Mason. Of all the homeschooling philosophies out there, she's my girl. And I've got to say, sitting there tonight, talking to the CC director, I realized how silly homeschoolers must sound when we talk "philosophy." Oh yes, I'm a classical/eclectic. I'm a CMer. I'm a little unschooly... What must the woman sitting next to us at Starbucks have thought?! She must have wished she had earplugs! It made me think of the beginning of Mere Christianity when C.S. Lewis uses the metaphor of the hall and rooms, but there in Starbucks, the hall was homeschooling, and the rooms were various homeschooling "denominations."

Is there a room for CC/CM? A room for CMers who do CC?

How do CMers stay true to Charlotte, while CCing? Your thoughts?

Easy Peanut Butter Cookies

This is one of the easiest peanut butter cookie recipes. It only has four ingredients. (I did come across one that only had three ingredients - sugar, peanut butter, and an egg; no vanilla.)

INGREDIENTS:

• 1 cup of sugar
• 1 cup of (salted) peanut butter
• 1 teaspoon of vanilla 
• 1 egg

(Yes, it is flourless, and it does actually produce edible cookies!) Preheat oven to 325 F. Bake 15 minutes. My daughter loved setting the temperature on the oven (she figured out 325 was the dot between 300 and 350!), stirring, rolling the "dough" balls, and pressing them with a fork, but she wasn't in love with the cookies. But it's a cookie! Warning: They are REALLY REALLY REALLY sweet.

Just a smidgen of what we did the past week...

Practicing her moves before class.

My daughter's class is learning their dance for the June recital. The dance goes something like this: diamond, diamond, pick up the flowers and let them fall, diamond, diamond, pick up the flowers and let them fall, Anna, Elsa, and then there's a turn, and then the strawberries come forward (my daughter is a strawberry, while her friend Brookey is a blueberry), then the blueberries come forward...

Yesterday we had our home(pre)school group lesson about measurement. That's Brookey's mommy reading Leo Lionni's Inch by Inch. She showed the kids a measuring tape, a tape measure, and gave them each a ruler, and then we measured printouts of the birds in the Lionni book (a flamingo's neck, a toucan's beak, etc.). For snack, she made some crescent roll worms, and some dirt cups with gummy worms. But these were gourmet dirt cups. She used coconut milk for the chocolate pudding (homemade), and coconut milk chocolate whipped cream, and - of course - crushed chocolate cookies.

 

Saturday night, we started some rock candy. We poured 2 1/2 cups of sugar - that's a whole lotta sugar - into a bowl, and one cup of water. I microwaved, stirred, microwaved, stirred, microwaved, and stirred. When all the sugar had dissolved, we dipped the popsicle sticks into the syrup and let them dry for 30 minutes on a plate. This was so seed crystals could form. I poured half of the syrup in one glass and half in another glass. Then I colored one with red food coloring, and one with blue food coloring. I poked a hole in a plastic lid, stuck the popsicle stick through the hole, then stuck the popsicle stick into the red syrup.This is to keep the syrup covered and the stick in place. Then I did the same for the other stick and put it in the blue syrup.

 This is what they looked like the next day.

Look at that sky. And the weather forecast said it was supposed to rain.

Last week, we made the no-guilt brownies from Trader Joe's. (Just add vanilla yogurt.) Chocolate is my daughter's favorite food group.